Historical Election Results Data
Overview
Access election results from the past 20 years, including federal, state, and local primaries, runoffs, and general elections in North Carolina, as well as precinct sorted results for recent elections. You may also view the certified election results for recent elections.
Want to explore historical election results data in a different view? You can also use the Election Results Dashboard. Learn how to navigate the dashboard on the About the Election Results Dashboard page.
Looking for more detailed provisional and absentee ballot data? Visit our Provisional and Absentee Data page.
Election Results
Each file provides the vote counts for each choice (i.e., each candidate or referendum) per contest. Five vote counts are reported per entry: votes cast in-person on Election Day, votes cast absentee by mail, votes cast early via one-stop voting sites, votes cast provisionally, and total votes cast. Data are provided per precinct (including real precincts and administrative precincts such as one-stop sites).
What’s included? Contest information includes election date, contest title, and number of choices on the ballot. Candidate information includes name and party affiliation. Vote counts are broken down by county, precinct and voting method. See layout file for full list of variables.
Precinct Sorted Data
These files contain the results of an election after all accepted provisional and absentee ballots have been sorted into their respective precincts. See layout file for full list of variables included in these files.
Why/when does the Precinct Sort take place? Per §163-132.5G, county boards are required to provide vote tabulation data by precinct. The precinct sort is a post-election re-tabulation whereby precinct returns for each item on the ballot shall include the votes cast by all residents of that voting precinct who voted, regardless of where the voter voted. The precinct sort is to be completed within 30 days (previously 60) after the election.
Why do the vote counts in the Precinct Sorted Data files differ slightly from those in the Election Results files? To protect the secrecy of voters’ ballots, statistical noise has been added to the precinct sorted results files. The process of adding statistical noise is a common practice among statisticians, demographers, and other organizations working with datasets containing sensitive and/or confidential information. The addition of statistical noise to the precinct sorted data ensures that, when joined to other datasets, the precinct sorted data cannot reveal the ballot choices of any voter. Due to the addition of statistical noise, the vote counts in the precinct data will differ slightly from those in the Election Results. As such, the precinct sorted data should not be considered a source for reporting official election results.
Certified Election Results
These PDFs contain the certified election results for recent past elections. Certification comes after the county boards of elections certify results at the county level and after a series of post-election audits by election officials verifies the counts. The bipartisan State Board of Elections then votes to certify statewide contests.
The date of the certification is shown in the corner of each page of the PDF. Results are certified at the end of canvass. “Canvass” means the entire process of determining that the votes have been counted and tabulated correctly, culminating in the authentication of the official election results. The State Board canvasses the votes cast in statewide, multicounty, and judicial contests and authenticates the count in every ballot item in the counties by determining that the votes have been counted and tabulated correctly.